shivers13 wrote:

Klas wrote:

shivers13 wrote:

Funny thing is Klas is just stirring the pot because I
happen to know he likes The Beach Boys! heehe

Yeah, I sure do! And you do too, and Ted, and now
Richard. Wow, that's 4 people which means we could
start our own vocal surf band!

We did didn't we? At least over the web. I dig that
new boss Surfites single!

Yeah, we sure did a bitchen single together! The RPM's rule!

T H E ✠ S U R F I T E S

Last edited: Nov 20, 2011 14:44:45

What is amazing to me, is that even at their beginning, the two things that would mark their career were already there...great vocal arrangements a la the Four Freshmen, and surf. Also consider how Brian's and the bands abilities grew in four short years from the simple "Surfin' to California Girls and the other great hits--and this was before Pet Sounds and all that came after.

The Beach Boys was the first band I really got into. I guess that's the sort of thing you never shake. Can I be a member of the club?

Don't burst my bubble if anyone thinks this is lame, but I recently discovered that Pendleton reissued the BB shirt in the original plaid colors as seen on the early LPs (they even call it "Beach Boys Plaid" now)---and did I buy one? Oh, yeah.

Klas wrote:

Yeah, I guess there's more people here who like the
Beach Boys' early vocals but I made a distinction
between just "like" and "being into".

The time: 1980. The place: Bud's East, Madison, WI.
The situation: Bud's was a restaurant that turned into a 'disco' at night.
What happened: The smartass young cook hangs around after the kitchen closes. The DJ is taking requests. Smartass asks for some Beach Boys. The crowd looks annoyed. The DJ states that he'll play whatever gets requested, and if there's no other requests, he's going to play BB all night. Smartass gets a whole night of BB.

websurfer wrote:

Don't burst my bubble if anyone thinks this is lame,
but I recently discovered that Pendleton reissued the
BB shirt in the original plaid colors as seen on the
early LPs (they even call it "Beach Boys Plaid"
now)---and did I buy one? Oh, yeah.

Right on! One got to "live" it a little! (Anyone remember that discussion from a couple of years ago, haha). I bought an original early 60's Pendleton in mint condition last time I visited California and wear it proudly!

T H E ✠ S U R F I T E S

They were worn by surfers in the early days… on a cold day after getting out of the water we would run over to the fire pit to warm up. The wet suits in the 60’s weren’t all that warm, so after a surf, a nice warm, wool Pendleton was the ticket.

Another girl group, The Sea Shells. did a tribute single to the Beach Boys in 1964 called "Love those Beach Boys". That song and "White Levi's" can be found on the cool Import CD, Surf Bunnies and Hot Rod Honeys.

Here's a great clip from Ready Steady Go from Nov 1964, post British Invasion. The BB's fight back and invade England! It shows off just how tight they were musically.

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Klas wrote:

shivers13 wrote:

Funny thing is Klas is just stirring the pot because
I
happen to know he likes The Beach Boys! heehe

Yeah, I sure do! And you do too, and Ted, and now
Richard. Wow, that's 4 people which means we could
start our own vocal surf band! Another pretty funny
thing is that I bet most people here would prefer the
Pet Sounds album over the BB's surf music albums. All
this on a surf music forum, haha.

ahhhhhhhh........i loved the beach boys. my first real band crush, my first album when i was 12.....(surfin' usa)......my first real exposure to surf instrumentals other than stuff i heard here and there on the radio or tv. i bought every 45 and played them to death. i couldn't wait for the next album release. the first live concert i took my son to see when he was ten. . and.....i hate to say, other than a few songs, i never warmed up to 'pet sounds'.

the beach boys were my entry level drug in to my addiction to music.

www.surfintheeye.com

OceanFlower wrote:

... and if memory serves
wasn't Pet Sounds really a Brian production and caused
a rift between him and Mike Love who didn't want to
stray from the "surf music" formula??

Brian was the leader and producer really of The BB since day one. But by Pet Sounds it really had become a one man show. Pet sounds came out in '66. They Started in '61. By '64 Brian had already grown tired of the surf/hot rod formula and wanted to out-do The Beatles. Despite the often repeated myth (you hear it a lot on this forum even) the Beach Boys did play their own instruments on their recordings. The session players started creeping in '64 around their fifth album. Pet Sounds (released in ’66) was almost entirely a session affair, partly because The Beach Boys themselves were touring heavily while Brian stayed home and wrote, but mostly because the stuff on Pet Sounds was experimental and more sophisticated and orchestrated. The rift between Brian and Mike was aggravated by this and the fact that he collaborated heavily on the album with lyricist Tony Asher instead of Mike. “Don’t fuck with the Formula” quote is attributed to Mike Love, but Capitol was also not crazy about the fact that Pet Sounds was more experimental. Interestingly, the album did not sell as well as their earlier efforts (it did do very well though). It would be their last truly successful album and lead to the downfall of the band for a while, but critics would latch on to it thus making it their most revered album.

BOSS FINK "R.P.M." available now from DOUBLE CROWN RECORDS!
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Corn Cob pipe! I really like Good Vibrations. It’s a pretty amazing song and collaboration lyrically between Mike and Brian. It was released as a single in 1966 after the Pet Sounds LP and number-one hit. It was tacked on to the LP Smiley Smile because Smile would never be released until just a few weeks ago. Even though I prefer their surf/hot rod stuff I still really like the LP's All Summer Long (’64) and Today! (‘65) very much. The ’66 and later LP’s Pet Sounds and the Smile sessions are a product of their time just like the earlier stuff and pretty amazing. But even though this later stuff is the stuff the critics really dig what I feel was lost is the band stop being a band and started being a solo vehicle for Brian. That was his destiny from the beginning but I liked it better when they were a band and not completely a vehicle for Brian’s experiments. That said, I still feel that how he pushed the limits of what a Rock album could be was revolutionary. Indeed a genius, but at what cost?

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Last edited: Nov 24, 2011 11:02:49

I remember being 12 or 13 and getting a two-record set with Smiley Smile and Wild Honey packaged together and being like WTF?????
I was a huge fan of their surf music and played my "Shut Down Vol. 2" so often you could see sunlight through it. I thought "Good Vibrations" was great, but I didn't read Rolling Stone or whatever at the time and didn't know what I was getting into with this stuff. Listening to stuff like "My Vegetables" and "She's Going Bald" had the pre-adolscent me wondering how anyone would let them put out "music" like that.
I'm older now, but like having a bad experience with Brussels Sprouts when you're a kid, I still can't go back and listen to this stuff no matter how much I read that it's terrific.

"We're lousy, we can't play. If you wait until you can play, you'll be too old to get up there. We stink, really. But it's great," Johnny Ramone .